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The Second Sunday after the Epiphany

"The Divine Indwelling"

The Rev. David Frazelle

Jesus said to them, “What do you seek?” And they said to him, “Where do you dwell?” Jesus said to them, “Come and see.”

Ten and a half years ago, I went on my first ever silent retreat. It was an eight-day Centering Prayer retreat, in which we prayed in silence a few hours per day. On the last evening of these retreats, when we come out of the silence, the participants have a chance to say something about what the retreat has meant to us. I will never forget, at the end of that first retreat, the testimony of a man in his mid-50’s - a man with a jolly affect, who had been successful in life by most measures, and who hid behind his humor much of the time. On the last night of that retreat, with tears streaming down his face, he said this: “I grew up in a family that went to church; but no one ever told me that God lived inside of me.” This man had heard about Jesus all his life. Eventually he had heard the call of Jesus to follow him, to come and see where he dwelt. He had experienced the reality of Christ dwelling within him. And that intimate knowledge by personal experience had changed his life forever. “I grew up in a family that went to church,” he said, “but no one ever told me that God lived inside of me.”

Today is my first Sunday back from another 8-day Centering Prayer retreat. Given today’s gospel text, which reminded me of the testimony of this man a decade ago, the Spirit seemed to say, “May no one who comes to the Chapel of the Cross on January 20th, 2008 go on in life without hearing that God lives inside of them!” I cannot manufacture the experience of it for myself or for anyone else. I cannot make anyone believe it. But I can at least proclaim with the gospel text this morning that God lives inside of us.

In the gospel according to John, more than any other gospel, words often carry multiple layers of meaning that resonate throughout the whole book. The verb translated “to dwell”, “to stay”, “to remain” or “to abide” is one such word. In our short passage, John uses the word five times, which tells us he is up to something. The Baptist tells his disciples twice in a row that Jesus is the one on whom the Spirit descended at his baptism and the one on whom the Spirit remains or dwells forever more. Although these two disciples had heard about Jesus for a long time, when they hear about the Spirit’s dwelling on Jesus they see him as if for the first time; and they follow him. When Jesus sees them following and asks them what they desire, they respond with a question: “Where do you dwell?” Jesus invites them to come and see – which is the invitation of a lifetime – and they go and dwell with him that day, and that experience of dwelling with Jesus changes their lives forever.

In our passage, though, John has only just begun to tell the story of God’s living presence with us and within us. A few chapters later, Jesus is preparing his disciples for his death in what scholars call the “farewell discourse”, and he speaks what is perhaps the key passage for the whole Christian life. He tells them, “I will not leave you desolate.” “I will pray the Father and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot see [or know]. You know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you.” “In that day,” he continues, “you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” And Jesus will conclude this long, rich discourse three chapters later with this famous prayer, “I do not pray for these [disciples] only, but also for those who are to believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us . . . The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one. I made known to them your name, and I will make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

We could go on to quote from more than 30 other places where John develops the story of God’s living presence within us through the Spirit of Christ. We could read other voices from Scripture and from the saints of the Church who bear witness to this most dynamic, intimate reality of our lives. I will spare us the multiplication of examples. The point is: God lives inside us! The whole of the Holy and Blessed Trinity dwells within us, forever, through the graces of baptism and Pentecost. Can you imagine with me the implications of this reality? This living presence of God in us is the source of the whole Christian life. Why do Christians serve others? Because Christ dwells within the Christian and within the other. How do Christians pray? We don’t know how to pray, but the Spirit of Christ intercedes for us to the Father and prays within us with sighs too deep for words. Why do we baptize new Christians into the death and resurrection of Jesus? Because God’s presence within us is so close to us and so real that it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us. Why do we make eucharist? That Christ may evermore dwell in us, and we in him, and that we live with more and more awareness of God’s life in us and through us.

Last week, our Rector illumined how John the Baptist had to expand his understanding of Jesus. He preached about how, in that text from Matthew’s gospel, Jesus reveals God as not just the Lord of judgment and repentance, but also and more fully as the Lord of infinite mercy, compassion and love. Today, our gospel passage pushes us to expand our knowledge of Jesus even further. This gospel proclaims not only that Jesus is the Lord of love, but also that this Lord lives at the deepest core of our being through the gift of his Holy Spirit of love, closer than breathing, closer than thinking, closer than choosing, closer to us than we are to ourselves.

And so we come here this morning, despite the weather, for a wide variety of reasons. We have heard about Jesus – perhaps for a short time time, perhaps all our lives. On some level we have heard his invitation to follow him. And this morning, we find ourselves confronted with his question, which is the very first thing he speaks in our gospel, “What do you desire?” When we search our hearts and listen, we hear that we desire more than anything else to know the dwelling-place of the One on whom rests the Holy Spirit of God. And we hear his invitation, “Come and see.” Come and see that I am in my Father, and the Father in me, and I in you. Come and see and let me change your life into mine forever.

© 2008: Chapel of the Cross